Recipe for virtue; a Zen kitchen (video)

Ajahn Chah, Ven. Sujato, Ellie Askew, Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly; Jeong Kwan (SCMP)

Be blameless, be virtuous, and be free (SF).

At first we train the body and speech to be free of unwholesomeness. This freedom is called virtue.

Some people think that to have virtue we have to memorize Pali phrases and chant [pray] them all the time, day and night.

But really all we have to do is make our body and speech blameless. That's virtue. It's not difficult to understand.

What is the way to merit or good karma?

It's just like cooking food. Put in a little bit of this, a little bit of that, until it's just right -- and it's delicious. And once it's delicious, we don't have to add anything else to it. The right ingredients have already been added.

In the same way, taking care that our actions and speech are proper will give us "delicious virtue," virtue that is just right.